Helen Mirren was in the elevator with me at the National Theatre. She pressed the button but it didn’t move. I said, “Fancy seeing you here and being stuck in an elevator.” And she said, “Was that meant to be funny?” I apologised, and she laughed. Even talking about it now, it feels so awkward and embarrassing.

Forgetting the words to my own songs on stage. I’m a very good mumbler of my own songs. You’d be surprised how few people notice – if you smile and do it confidently, they’re none the wiser.

I once threw up on the shoes of one of my vocal heroes, the Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan. He sent me home in a taxi with a towel.

In my 20s I was in a show called The Unauthorised Autobiography of Samantha Brown. The actor who played my dad messed up his lines and it made me laugh so hard that I ended up peeing my pants.

Jill Nalder. Lydia West played her character in It’s a Sin. She was on the wards with nurses caring for patients who were dying [of Aids] when lots of people wouldn’t go near them.

Like something or someone is part of your DNA, the fabric of who you are.

It’s the stuff about my appearance that sticks. I read I had a face like a crumpled napkin and teeth that could till a field.

Early in my career I got really close to being one of the kids in the Narnia movie. I remember being crushed.

I can be an overthinker and a vicious self-critic.